In what could be a recording from the last two years, factory Yamaha's Valentino Rossi has identified front-end problems with his YR-M1, saying it is pushing through the corners at Austin's MotoGP track.
The Doctor finished a dismal eighth in today's qualifying session and hasn't been able to find even the pace he showed after two days' testing at the Texas circuit in May. His best then was a late 2'04 but today he could only find a 2'05.3, some 2.3s slower than Marc Marquez.
"I have a lot of problem with the front pushing, the weight for the front tyre in braking is maybe too much. Today also we try the harder tyre which I think will be the tyre for the race but we don't fix the problem. We try to work with the spring, with the pre-load but we are not able to do better.
"Tomorrow we have to try some different geometry and we will see. We have something to do. The warm-up is very early tomorrow and the conditions looking better so may be interesting to understand and we have to try to go a bit faster.
"In the test I was faster than today. The bad surprise was for us because already in the test I was not fantastic but I was at 2'04.9 on the second day and at that moment I have just one second of disadvantage from Marquez. We try some of ways that work better in Jerez and also in Qatar but looks like here, no way."